Community leaders from South Sudan were quick to claim their countrymen and women were being treated like “criminals”.

Melbourne-based lawyer Maker Mayek, who is originally from South Sudan, urged viewers to boycott the program rather than watch the “bogus story”.

“Africans love this country as much as any other Australian and have no interest to harm others,” he wrote on Twitter.

Comedian Meshel Laurie wrote it was “racist bulls**t”.

Members of the African community were so enraged by the story they “declared war on Channel 7” and organised a protest at the network’s Melbourne headquarters to take place next Friday.

In a statement to news.com.au, a spokeswoman for Sunday Night doubled down and defended the story.

“Sunday Night stands by every element of the report broadcast last week,” she said.

“It was a fair and factual report that gave context to an ongoing and important issue in Melbourne.

“Sunday Night spent many months talking to and working with both the Victorian Police and members of the South Sudanese community in preparation of the report.”

The show was criticised for being one-sided. It featured an interview with Melbourne woman Elaine French, who was working at a high-end jewellery store in Toorak when it was robbed by a group of men.

Described as a “broken woman”, Ms French said the robbery had ruined her life.

“I don’t have a life anymore. These four walls is where I live. I’m too nervy. I can’t go to a shopping centre because if I ran into a coloured person I’d be having a panic attack again,” she said.

But Sunday Night said its “investigation went beyond simply reporting the experience of victims”.

“Sunday Night set out to show the circumstances of a local South Sudanese musician who had fallen into a life of crime, and how he has now turned his life around and is producing music in the hope of steering other South Sudanese youth away from making the same mistakes,” the spokeswoman said.

On Thursday, Titan Debirioun, a fed-up member of the African community in Melbourne, launched into Channel 7 over the story.

“If we have to declare war on Channel 7, then that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

Journalist Alex Cullen has been criticised for a story on
Sunday Night.Source:Channel 7

On Facebook, Mr Debirioun wrote that the media “continues to vilify and demonise our community year after year” and “it seems that we’ve been downgraded from people into juicy headlines guaranteed to raise viewership”.

In a video ahead of a planned, peaceful protest, he said the media has “pretty much waged war against our community”.

“You guys are making people fear us for no reason,” he said. “You’re making people look at us like we’re monsters. We’re just like anyone else. We have dreams, we have aspirations, we have hardworking people that are trying to change their lives.

“By you guys continuing to spread this agenda, you’re pretty much destroying these people’s future and their reputation.

“I’m not going to let that happen anymore. It’s over for that. We’re going to start fighting back, we’re going to make sure we protect our community and our image.

“When you are one the most prevalent media sources in Australia, what you say affects millions of people, and it seems Channel 7 doesn’t care about that. They’re just trying to scare the general populous.

“We are going to fight back. We’re going to protest until we get an apology … We have allowed them to diminish our whole reputation. I’m not going to allow Channel 7 to bully my people, make money off it, keep on pushing this bulls**t agenda.

“I think it’s time to stop with the whole ‘African gangs’ approach. You guys are feeding ignorance. You’re giving people lies to feed their belief that we’re somehow lesser beings.

It’s been three years and enough is enough.

“We’re going to start holding you guys accountable for your actions. If that means we have to continuously protest and pretty much declare war on Channel 7, a verbal war, a war on rights, then that’s what we’re going to do.”

The protest has been planned for 4pm next Friday at Seven News headquarters on Harbour Esplanade and more than 1100 people have registered their interest in attending.

Barely a week goes by when they’re not in the #news - African #gangs running riot, terrorising, wreaking havoc. Police are hesitant to admit there’s even a problem. The latest attack was just days ago, so what can be done? The major investigation on #SN7 - 8:20pm on @Channel7. pic.twitter.com/nTJW9Y8DYo